Found footage
narratives have become increasingly prevalent in film, not only because of the
ease with which these often unpolished films can be made, but also due to the
increasing prevalence of recording devices in our everyday existence. Now that
digital cameras cheap and easily accessible, to the point that nearly every
cell phone now comes equipped with one, these narratives are increasingly easy
to believe. On the other hand, this is what makes a period found-footage film
like Operation Avalanche more
difficult to swallow.

It has been 18
years since the last installment in the Phantasm
franchise, and nearly 40 since the original film, but Phantasm: Ravager is clearly a film for the fan-base already
familiar with the narrative. Even with working knowledge of the franchise, Phantasm: Ravager has the potential to
confuse and disorient, which was the hallmark of the original. Even the
low-budget filmmaking of this final installment is on target with the efforts
needed to make the first film, though digital effects are a sad replacement for
the creative practical tricks used in 1979.

I’m struggling
with an analysis of American Honey,
because the very things that make individual moments endlessly captivating
throughout the lengthy 162 run-time are also the largest weakness of the
overall film. Nearly everything about the American road trip made by a British
filmmaker is fittingly contradictory, including the fact that the main function
of the film is to expose an unseen side of middle-America, despite being made
by an outsider. This also gives this film a sense of contrived realism, a
depiction of America
imagined by someone with limited experience and a propensity for focusing on
the bleak and the transient.

Underworld a classic tale of forbidden
love borrowing heavily from Romeo and Juliet, adapted to the age-old folklore
about vampire and werewolf. The mythology of these films has vampires and
werewolves coming from the same human family originally, before being bitten by
a bat and wolf. The history beyond this is a mystery even to the creatures, who
only know that they have a deep blood feud against each other. They fight
within the city and beneath it, hidden to the humans. Selene (Kate Beckinsale)
is a hunter of the Lycans, killing werewolves skillfully under the belief that
they killed her family. When she notices them following a human named Michael
(Scott Speedman), Selene discovers a secret about the man that could either
bond the two feuding creatures or cause a brutal war.

Are you a fan of
the HBO series “True Detective,” the serial killer films of David Fincher (Seven, Zodiac, The Girl with the
Dragon Tattoo), or the Swedish trilogy that the latter was based on? Stop
whatever you are currently binging and seek out the Department Q films, immediately. It shouldn’t be that difficult, as
each of the individual films have been available on Netflix for some time, and
now the entire trilogy is available in a single affordable package.

It could be seen
as a flaw that Disorder bounces back
and forth between a realism and typical action spectacle, but the innovation of
the film is its ability to inspire doubt about which will dominate the
narrative from one moment to the next. The protagonist is clearly suffering
from PTSD, though it is a mistake to immediately dismiss all of his paranoia as
completely unfounded. At the same time, despite the existence of very real
dangers, this does not make the reaction to them normal by any means. Director
Alice Winocour is very clearly addressing the idea that traumatic experiences
have a dramatic effect on how the world is viewed, though it is unclear what
message she is attempting to make about this phenomenon once the action takes
over the narrative.

Film noir
narratives rarely relied on sympathetic female protagonists, typically
resigning them to either an innocent supporting character or a devious femme
fatale. While there is a femme fatale in the 1952 noir, Sudden Fear, the main character is unusual enough just being a
woman, but also has the added distinction of ending in a place of moral
superiority. Star Joan Crawford had previously bent this male-driven movement
of post-war cinema by blending the woman’s picture (now referred to as
melodrama) and the film noir with the 1945 classic, Mildred Pierce.

I’ve seen worse
films than Stagecoach: The Texas Jack
Story, but that’s not saying much. Even the aspects of this film that
aren’t terrible are still no better than a generic TV movie. And that is
insulting to some TV movies, especially the western ones like “Lonesome Dove.”
It is also fitting that I mention that highly acclaimed TV miniseries, because
the Stagecoach director’s last
western was Lonesome Dove Church,
which I can only assume was attempting to cash in on the success of the
previous success. Stagecoach makes
similar references to better westerns of the past with its derivative title,
distinguished only by the sub-title.

In many ways, Southside with You is the opposite of
Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise,
despite sharing many similarities in narrative structure. And the differences
have very little to do with race, nor is this the first of these single-date
films to address the issues of black Americans. The first film of Moonlight director Barry Jenkins was Medicine for Melancholy, which follows a
pair navigating San Francisco
together the day after having a one-night-stand. But whereas Before Sunrise and Medicine for Melancholy are films about two characters crossing
paths as they head in different directions, Southside
with You follows two characters that often resist a future together despite
our knowledge of their inevitable union.

Discovery
Channel’s “Harley and the Davidsons” seems setup to be another one of those
hybrid documentaries, which use recreation footage on top of narration to
provide accurate history of events. And the filmed sequences certainly do
resemble recreation footage, but the documentary elements are completely
absent, leaving the audience with all of the stiff acting and contrived
dialogue, but none of the historical background. Fans of Harley Davidson
motorcycles may enjoy the material, simply because they enjoy the subject
matter, but there is far too little of interest for the average viewer.

If you remove
the ideas of misogyny from the narrative of Ex
Machina and replace it with hard-hitting action sequences, you would have Morgan. Little about the screenplay is
original, but something about allowing two women to head up a majority of battles
(both verbal and hand-to-hand) still feels innovative. Even if the screenplay
itself is not nearly as intelligent as the initial setup seems to imply, and
despite being able to predict the final twist less than halfway through the movie,
I remained engaged with the performers and the world that they created until
the last frame.

Do I really need
to review End of a Gun? Can’t I just
say that it is a Steven Seagal movie and leave it at that? Isn’t it enough to
tell you that the film was shot on a shoestring budget in Romania, standing in for a narrative that takes
place in Paris?
Do audiences really need any information beyond the fact that this is directed
by Keoni Waxman, whose last eight movies have all starred a barely conscious Seagal?
Someone must wake him up at the end of these productions to remind him to cash
his checks.

It always makes
me laugh when a film tries to promote itself by what other films the executive
producer has worked on, as if the man overseeing the money has an artistic
control over the end product. This is what The
Unspoken has done with its marketing, as well as changing the film’s
original title (from The Haunting of
Briar House), plastering the names of films like Insidious and Paranormal
Activity over the cover of the DVD because of their vaguest connection with
this one. There may be some similar scares within this flavor of haunted house
tale, but the script is an absolute disaster which cannot be recovered from.

For about the
first 15 minutes of Jennifer Lopez: Dance
Again, I was convinced that this was going to be one of those documentaries
that made me a fan out of the subject through thoughtful consideration and
compelling footage. I even found myself getting choked up over the
inspirational build-up to the first performance of her first world tour, but
quickly after that it became obvious that this is a glorified piece of
marketing, a vanity piece made for fans of Lopez alone. I went from loving to
hating this film in record time.

There is a rich
tradition for drama and comedy in the world of low budget independent
filmmaking; all you really need is a script, some actors, and a camera. Films
have been shot entirely on cell phones with this simple formula. Even genre
films have their place among independents, with many horror films made with a
little innovation and creativity. But action films are another beast entirely,
and it takes a sturdy set of stones to tackle the expected spectacle of the
genre. Timothy Woodward Jr. has established himself as one of the few
filmmakers bold enough to embrace this challenge, filming the ambitious
narrative of Decommissioned for a
cool million, with mixed results.

I’m going to say
some unpopular things about the gender pay gap. Typically, this is a
straightforward issue. Dealing with wage inequality in the average workplace,
women with the same job and experience as men should get paid the same. It is
fairly simple concept (and one that I wholeheartedly support, to be clear), but
this same idea is much more complex in Hollywood,
where fame is a commodity.

While it may do
little to sway disbelievers into becoming fans of improv shows, a medium that
has long been viewed as the only step below stand-up comedy in the list of
shows that friends of entertainers dread attending out of mere obligation and
support, Don’t Think Twice is so
profoundly insightful in its discussion of larger issues that it ultimately
doesn’t matter what the art form is. This may sound somewhat crass considering
the weeks that the cast spent rehearsing and performing real improv shows,
which were filmed for inclusion in the final edit, but it is the way that
success effects their group dynamic which is well-thought out and insightful.
The improv, despite being edited down to presumably show the funniest of the
real material, lacks the kind of laughs to counter the spot-on criticism of
planned sketch comedy on shows like Saturday Night Live.

Easily one of
the strangest horror movies ever made, Phantasm
has a little bit of everything crammed into one movie. The 1979 cult classic is
a rare sci-fi horror film made on a low budget. There are moments of gore (primarily
involving the sphere weapon), a dark sense of humor, erratic and purposefully
disorienting editing, and even a bit of unexpected realism (a victim urinating
during his death scene is still shocking today). This movie is far from a
masterpiece, but there are undeniable moments of genius in here, and this
remastered version presents them in startling clarity.

The character of
Henry is based loosely on the real-life serial killer Henry Lee Lucas,
including many of the facts about the killer’s life in the movie. There are
some changes, but the relationship that the serial killer has with an ex-con
friend was borrowed from reality. The murders in the film, however, were taken
from the countless lies that Lucas told once in prison. He confessed to crimes
that he hadn’t committed once he had already been sentenced. The element of
truth is part of what makes Henry:
Portrait of a Serial Killer so disturbing, much like In Cold Blood. The fabricated murders simply add to the myth of the
man.

After to an
unsuccessful attempt at making a Jason Bourne film without Matt Damon or its
title character, the franchise has returned to business as usual, even if it
just feels like a collection of deleted scenes from the original trilogy.
Director Paul Greengrass also returns to the franchise in order to provide the
same nausea-inducing shaky camera work that he used in the first two sequels,
along with a barely significant storyline making transparent modern-day commentary
on issues of online privacy. None of this really matters, however, because the
film is more interested in endless chase scenes than it is the narrative.

We join Jason
Bourne (Damon) punishing himself for past indiscretions by enduring endless
bouts of underground boxing in Greece.
When former CIA employee Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) hacks into the government
mainframe, she discovers a secret folder about Bourne’s background with the
company, as well as evidence that a similar program has been started back up.
Taking this information to Bourne, Nicky unintentionally brings the attention
of the intelligence community back on the former operative who has taken
extreme measures to remain hidden.

In charge of
this investigation in Langley
is the head of the Cyber Ops Division, Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander with an
often uncomfortably forced American accent). Although Lee appears to be an
advocate for reasoning with Bourne, the director of the CIA (Tommy Lee Jones)
secretly undermines her by siccing another one of his trained assassins
(Vincent Cassel) on the operation, with the sole purpose of eliminating Bourne
altogether. The primary reason for getting rid of him is to avoid allowing the
former operative to discover a conspiracy by the government to use a social
media platform (clearly modeled after Facebook) in order to spy on the American
public.

While the
integration of online privacy issues into the world of Jason Bourne updates the
film’s relevance, it often feels forced in a movie that is otherwise occupied
with more secrets in the title character’s background. At this point, one can
only hope that all of the secrets in Bourne’s past have been revealed. But even
with these two competing storylines, Jason
Bourne ultimately feels light on reasons for existing. There is little else
for Bourne to do but follow and be followed, with the screenplay giving the
main character less than 50 lines in the entire two-hour run-time.

Even the action scenes begin to feel
redundant. There are only so many times we can see Jason Bourne being followed
with jerky camera movement and tense musical scores before it becomes clear
that style is over-riding substance. It would be far more endurable if the
style were not so unpleasant, including camera work which makes discerning the
action more difficult than rewarding. Even an impressively spectacle-driven
climactic car chase on the Las Vegas
strip isn’t enough to save the film from feeling like a watered down repeat.

The 4K Ultra HD
release for Jason Bourne has its strengths,
but it also makes the film’s weaknesses somewhat more apparent. The visuals are
just not than impressive, though I admit to having little objectivity when it
comes to the unnecessary shaky camera work and heavy use of a zoom lens within
Greengrass films. And there just isn't enough color in the photography to warrant the upgrade, save the final showdown in Vegas. What does feel greatly enhanced is the immersive audio, as
this often has more impact that the disorienting visuals. Even if I often had
trouble telling what was happening, at least it sounded cool.

This release
also comes with a Digital HD copy, as well as a Blu-ray disc, which includes
the film’s special features. There is a three-part feature about the fight
training, choreography, and its relevance to the narrative. There are also
several featurettes on the film’s chase scenes, including the one taking place
in Athens and the one shot on the Las Vegas strip. The last
extra is a generic featurette which discusses the elements of the film,
focusing primarily on the return of Damon and Greengrass.

With the flood
of bad to mediocre zombie films released regularly, the first Dead Rising film adaptation stood apart
thanks to a bit of creative filmmaking and a few relevant allegories for modern
society. Planned merely months after the release of the first film, Dead Rising: Endgame continues a pattern
of fairly transparent political commentary, especially for those living in
terror of a xenophobic Trump administration. The irony is that Dead Rising and its sequel were both
made in Canada.

Considering how
innovative actor John Krasinski’s directorial debut was, I was surprised to
find his second attempt somewhat derivative. With Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, he had the near-impossible task
of adapting a collection of short stories by David Foster Wallace into a
coherent narrative, and he succeeded with artistry and skill, which is why The Hollars feels so blandly uninspired.
Instead of trying to do something new, Krasinski has chosen to work in a
narrative that has all but become the official genre of independent filmmaking:
the dysfunctional family dramedy.